


oh eurydice, aflame

by CorvidFeathers



Category: The Orpheus Protocol (Podcast)
Genre: Brainwashing, Gen, Grief, Guilt, POV Second Person, Spoilers, season two spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 10:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18364262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvidFeathers/pseuds/CorvidFeathers
Summary: In the aftermath of Jerusalem, Orpheus returns Mitch to Walter for a time.He won’t remember,they say.





	oh eurydice, aflame

**Author's Note:**

> is this the first orpheus protocol fic on ao3? go listen to the orpheus protocol it's Good
> 
> **spoiler warning!** this story alludes to/deals with one of the big reveals from the end of season two! my opening summary is purposefully oblique because of that, but the premise of this piece is that Orpheus tried to pair one of their previous Mitch clones with Walter to regain their old partnership/cell.

_He won’t remember,_ they say.

Sickness crawls up your throat at the thought of smoothing it all over, playing pretend.  

Keep your best friend, and doom the world.  Kill your best friend, and prolong the world.

It was a binary, and you made your choice.  

That’s the reason the thought makes your hands shake.  You’re the type of person to stand by your actions. And this, the thought creeps into your mind in the moments between terror and exhaustion, weaving furnace-hot guilt through your dreams, this is tantamount to an admission of wrong.

_He won’t remember,_ they say, whisper-thin voices, and it seems like something right out of your handbook; the things that would creep into your mind, offering you all you want, if only you would lean closer, take a bite.

But there’s no protocol for resisting your own handlers, so you swallow your sickness and play your part.  

_What happened?_

You think of Orpheus, the man on his path up from the underworld, as you stare at the clock on the hospital wall, avoiding those wide, empty eyes, the scarred, charmless face.  Orpheus, voices of the dead in his ears, eyes fixed on the future.

_There was a mission.  It went wrong._ The lies twist and shudder in your mouth, cold, dead things that move without a life of their own, just like the shade of your best friend.  

_You were hurt, badly._

The shade drinks in your words, trusting, desperate, as he runs the fingers of his good hand over the ruin of his sword arm and tries to put words to the emptiness behind his eyes.  You play your part; the caring friend. The loyal ally.

_I don’t remember,_ he says.   _Walt, I-  There’s so much I don’t remember._

It’s more than memory; there’s something else missing.  The shade feels it, even if he can’t read it in your eyes anymore.  From the moment you met Mitch, there had been something pulling you into his orbit, some inexorable force of charm, some good woven inextricably into his soul.  

From then on, his smile was home.  Even in the darkest of places, the depths of horror you faced in Orpheus’s service.  The fire stole all of that, licking it from the crevices of his soul just as it wicked the flesh from his bones.

_You will.  It takes time._

Your smile is a hollow, dead thing tugging at the corners of your lips.

Mitch would have noticed.

Some small part of you wants to ignore this, so it can be you and Mitch, Mitch and you, again.  So long as you don’t look too close at this thing dogging your footsteps, you can hear his voice again.  Hear him speak of you- and eventually, of home, in the halting tones of someone who can construct the sentence but not truly fathom its meaning.

So long as you don’t turn around.

You dream, sometimes, strange dreams.  

_Part of the package of being the saviour of the world_.  That’s what Zepheniah says, on the mornings that find the both of you awake too early.  He says you should listen to your dreams; that they could be signposts, marking your way.  

You think it’s more likely just the fire, or your own guilty conscience.  More often than not, you dream of the flames; the world ablaze, the sky ripped open, the fist-in-your-chest feeling of slipping and falling.

When it’s not the fire, it’s Mitch.  Mitch, under the fiery light of a Illinois summer, gleaming and whole.  Mitch, hollow, dogging your footsteps, the voice over your shoulder.

Mitch, remembering.

Mitch, with his hands wrapped around your neck.

_Show me again,_ the shade calls, in the training facility one afternoon.  He’s started training with you, sometimes, only when you’re alone.  You know the rest of your old cell has caught sight of him, and drawn their own conclusions, but you’re the only one who knows the full story of what happened in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem.

You turn back to him, and the words slip from your mouth.   _I killed you._

_The tests were a failure_ , they say.   _We will adjust the perimeters and start again._ No apology.  No reprimand for the scorch marks on the walls of the training facility.  

You wonder if it’s a lie.  You wonder who was being tested.

Out of the sight of them, you choke on the memory of smoke and control slipping from your fingers.

The fire rests behind your breastbone, beating through your veins, smoldering beneath your skin, waiting for the slightest touch of wind to rise to an inferno and burn everything to ash.  You are nothing but a vessel for something more; you are a passenger in your own body, clinging to the scraps of your own skin.

Orpheus had his song; you can only burn.


End file.
